On this week's #SundayGunday, we fire Federal’s Freight Train, the Freight Train Copper Sabot slug made for deer hunting. First introduced in January 2024, Federal Premium’s Freight Train Copper Sabot load is an exceptional ballistic improvement to old-school slug loads. In short, this ain’t your daddy’s slug. This deer medicine ready for 2025 is designed to be fired from a fully rifled bore.
The load is built on a mono-metal projectile with a polymer-tipped, aerodynamic nose profile that is fired from a sabot sleeve to deliver solid exterior performance that upon impact delivers solid terminal performance thanks to a skived nose cavity. Federal has thought of everything to ensure a slug hunter a worry-free outing. The whole package delivers a great launch, great in-flight ballistics and great terminal performance.
The load features a polymer-tipped, lead-free, copper mono-metal projectile with a hollow cavity seated in a sabot to provide a huge ballistic advantage over a conventional slug. In fact, Federal’s ballisticians have fired 4-inch groups at 200 yards with this ammunition. The soft sabot aligns perfectly with your shotgun bore upon firing then separates from the projectile after leaving the muzzle. When it strikes game, the skived slug tip guarantees expansion.
The best part is Federal has not skimped in the velocity department. Four loads prove the point. The 12-gauge 3-inch, 300-grain version leaves the barrel at 2000 fps. The 12-gauge 2 3/4-inch, 300-grain load travels at 1900 fps. A 20-gauge 3-inch, 275-grain load travels at 1900 fps. And a 20-gauge 2 3/4-inch, 275-grain slug flies at 1700 fps. Like we said, this stuff delivers a lot of news, fast—thus the name.
We spoke with Adam Moser, director of product engineering of Federal Ammunition, to learn more. He explained that during redesign of the company’s copper slug Federal aimed to improve penetration depth, and to achieve this they focused on decreasing expanded diameter of the upset projectile without sacrificing weight retention. Moser said that by optimizing the hollow-point geometry, skive depth and petal thickness Federal was able to reduce expanded diameter to achieve 30 percent more penetration than a standard slug. All this thought was incorporated in the new Copper Sabot load for 2025.
With all this in mind we thought, “Why let the end of deer season stop you?” We could see Federal Premium Copper Sabot slugs becoming a viable choice for many bear hunters and boar hunters, too—and we bet some shotgun hunters will agree with us.
Federal Premium Copper Sabot slugs sell for $22.99 to $25.99 for a box of five rounds. Learn more about your choices at federalpremium.com, and as always, to support great content like this and the mission of defending the Second Amendment, Click the "Join" button at the top, left corner of this page. We’ll see you over there.
